


just a call away

by ms bricolage (onefootforward)



Series: a hundred bits and baubles [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Everyone is normal, F/M, Sad Ending, This is a sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 08:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5822257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onefootforward/pseuds/ms%20bricolage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’ve reached Bellamy Blake. If you’re one of my students, leave a trivia fact about our current lesson before your message, or, for the love of god, just e-mail me like normal kids these days. If this is Miller, buddy, I just spent nine hours with you, what’re you calling me for? And if this is my wife—I love you. You’ve brought an unbelievable amount of joy into my life. Please remember that before you leave another nine-minute message of the x-file theme song on repeat for me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	just a call away

**Author's Note:**

> There was a sad book. This angle may be overused, but there was a Very Sad Book.

 

 

 _“You’ve reached Bellamy Blake. If you’re one of my students, leave a trivia fact about our current lesson before your message, or, for the love of god, just_ e-mail _me like normal kids these days. If this is Miller, buddy, I just spent nine hours with you, what’re you calling me for? And if this is my wife—I love you. You’ve brought an unbelievable amount of joy into my life. Please remember that before you leave another nine-minute message of the x-file theme song on repeat for me.”_

 

 

 

“What’re you thinking?”

She throws the photo album. Not on _purpose_ , not exactly, but it’s a very visceral sort of satisfaction, both the sound it makes when it hits one of the stools, and the look on Raven’s face when she turns back around. Eyebrows furrowed and mouth wide open—it takes a lot to make Raven look anything other than vaguely pissed off or sarcastically euphoric, and Clarke considers chucking the phonebook at her as well, just to see what would happen.

Raven steps into the room, the door closing behind her with a _click_ that echoes loudly in the silence, and the moment passes. Clarke’s heart beat slows back down to something that doesn’t float around her ears, and the moment passes. It’s like time keeps on pooling up around her, and she’s lost the will to swim, and the moments have all _passed_.

“Clarke?”

“Hmm?”

“Why is there so much tupperware on your counter?”

 _Her counter_. Clarke breathes in deeply.

“Sympathy casserole.” She breathes out.

Raven considers this calmly. “Is there a difference between that and normal casserole?”

She’s been stacking them like this for…some amount of time now. Days, maybe, weeks more likely. It’s a fairly impressive mound of food, so long as no one tries to eat any of it. “I don’t think I have to return the tupperware for this one?”

Raven nods. “…Right.”

She lolls back her head and squints at the counter again. “Help yourself,” she tries, tries to pass for whatever people want to see as normal, ruining it by adding, “To the tupperware, I mean. I wouldn’t eat anything in there.”

“Why?”

“Mold.”

“Ah.”

There’s a stack of mail in Raven’s hands. She sets this on the counter, alongside the casserole dishes and the wilted packages of flowers, then moves and lays next to Clarke on the linoleum floor. Clarke watches all of this out of the corner of her eye, unwilling or perhaps unable to move. She’d torn down all the clocks, because time keeps building and building and _building_ up around her, keeps slipping through her fingers and she’s _tired_ of things _slipping through her fingers_. There’s glass next to her ankle, but Raven doesn’t lay there so it is _okay_.

Everything is okay.

 

 

 

_“Hello! Oh—no, no, not like that. Pan out.”_

_“Who exactly is filming here?”_

_“The incompetent half of this partnership, clearly.”_

_Laughter. “I’m pretty sure I’m more competent than your fifth grade tripod.”_

_“My—whoever has been telling you stories about my fifth grade tripod needs to be warned about the can of_ whoop ass _I’m about to—”_

 _“You did_ not _just say whoop ass.”_

_“Tell Wells I’m gunning for him. And that he’s a piece of shit.”_

_“You need to stop watching shit films after you get home from night shifts. You can tell him yourself, anyway, since you round together.” A pause. “Well, you will if you ever finish filming your lecture.”_

_“…”_

_“Say no more films Clarke.”_

_“…But—the Sigourney Weaver marathon!”_

_“Clarke.”_

_“Right—right. Okay,” A sigh, and then—“Hello! Doctor Griffin here. Today our lecture is going to cover the potentials for neuromodulation using dextroamphetamines, which I know, very exciting topic, but bear with me for a moment while we do a quick review. As always, a big thanks to our cameraman, the arguably devoted Mr. Blake—”_

 

 

 

Their bed is a king and—inordinately luxurious, was what he’d complained, that only people trying to fit their very large egos needed a bed that was nearly as wide as it was long.

But it stayed. Clarke would run her cold fingers up his side every time he made a scathing comment (— _“Your father complex is just about as bad as your mommy issues_ ”—) or lay sideways, prop her chin on his shoulder and say something serious just to see if it made him flinch (—“ _I hate your mother, and I love you. I love_ you _.”—_ ). Sometimes it would be Bellamy, edging her into the middle of the bed and cocooning themselves in blankets and bad television, if the week was very bad, or, very good.

She sleeps on the couch these days.

 

 

 

 _“Look, I love you, so I’m just going to drop the bad news right away. I’m going to be late. The short story involves Miller, jaeger bombs, and hopeless optimism, and the long one—well, I’m going to be_ really _late. Just entertain my mother until I get there—talk about how much you hate your mother! You have that in common. And just in case you’ve forgotten it now: I love you. Please don’t change all our alarms to the_ ‘What Does the Fox Say’ _chorus again. Bye babe.”_

 

 

 

“You should eat something.”

Octavia sets the plate down on Clarke’s lap before she can figure out what to say—whether _hypocrite_ is an appropriate response, or if she really is meant to keep placating people by accepting the heaps of food sent her way. She doesn’t say either of these things, partially because Octavia’s been frowning a lot, and this is the first time she’s said anything since the funeral, but mostly because she just can’t be fucked to find the energy anymore.

“Why is it,” Clarke says, voice flat, “that the answer to grief is always some sort of food?”

Octavia shrugs. “Fuck if I know. Eat it anyway.”

The plate is followed by a fork, followed by Octavia climbing down and wedging herself next to Clarke and the armchair. Clarke, who had elected to sit on the floor for possibly the next forever, stabs one of the meatballs, stares past it, then places the whole thing down on her other side.

Octavia tips over, her head coming to rest on Clarke’s shoulder. Octavia runs hot and it’s a lot like having a very large pet curl up against her side. A very large, sniffley pet.

Clarke sighs. “We should get our shit together.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, and presses in closer.

There’s music in the background, something appropriate and muted and definitely the type of thing Bellamy would’ve hated. Just like the finger food being passed around or the sobbing stranger in the corner.

She leans her head onto Octavia’s, idly staring at the contrast of blonde and brunette. There are five stages to grief, if you want to make things simple—if you want to miss the feelings that fall through the cracks, the way that grief is a beast that follows you your whole life, how Clarke lost her father years ago and still wakes up from nightmares about the accident. But sure, there are five stages of grief, and Clarke is wrecked with envy over the sobbing stranger in the corner.

Because—they’re at the top already. They’ve hopped over the fury and the fear and this overwhelming _numbness_ , buried themselves in cries and dry heaves, and they’ll wake up tomorrow with the weight of this day off their shoulders. They’re passing acquaintances, aunts and uncles and relatives who only ever showed up once every four years to give unwanted advice and drop questions about your life choices on your lap and then _run_ , and Clarke hates them.

If only for that reason, she thinks, Bellamy would hate them too.

 

 

 

_“Happy Birthday!”_

_“I—what the_ fuck _—”_

_There’s the general chaos of three dozen party poppers going off nearly all at once, and then—“Hey! It’s not like it’s every day that my fabulous and incredibly devoted husband—”_

_“Your confused and increasingly frustrated husband.”_

_“Yeah, sure, whatever. You don’t turn thirty every day.”_

_There’s yelling and clapping and enough noise to drown out whatever he says next, although the frown on his face is clear—the famous Blake frown, coded somewhere into their genetic sequence. The person behind the camera cheers, and then Bellamy’s zeroing in on the frame with surprising clarity for someone just off a thirteen hour shift._

_“Miller, I swear, if you keep letting this pest,” he pulls a giggling Clarke up against his side, “sweep you up in her scheming—”_

_“I don’t_ scheme _. I’m too busy to scheme.”_

_“It’s true,” Wells hollers from the kitchen, the camera jerkily panning over to him, “We’re too busy to scheme.”_

_The camera shifts back over to Bellamy scowling, his arm still tight around Clarke’s waist. “You have my sister on speed dial. You_ both _do.”_

_“Octavia schemes,” Clarke happily defends, “We help.”_

_“Please stop referring to you and Wells as a unit—it frightens me.”_

_The camera man laughs again, drawing Bellamy’s focus. Then he’s reaching for the camera, smiling as he does so—there’s shuffling and a sharp scratching noise, the static of a few token complaints and then—_

_Blackness._

 

 

 

“Mrs. Blake—”

She jerks up off the cafeteria table, where she’d been making good progress on visualizing her textbook as a pillow. Wells, adjacent, turns around, his hand still curled around hers.

“It’s Dr. Griffin,” he says tersely, “And she’s busy.”

The stuttering means it’s probably an intern. Probably her intern. If she still has interns. It’s an important thing to ask. Probably.

“It’s just—Dr. Griffin, the uh, the other Dr. Griffin, she told me to tell you that she’s catching a plane tomorrow and that she hasn’t seen you since the funeral and—well, the gist of it is that she would like to? Like to see you, that is. I mean, obviously she would like to see you, she’s your mother and all—”

Clarke sighs. The intern shuts up.

There is lead in her veins, lead and mercury that pull her down. It feels like an eternity for her to stand up anyway and face the babbling intern, who looks for all intents and purposes like she’s going to continue babbling.

“Dr. Abby Griffin wants to see me,” she says, enunciating her words slowly and clearly—like she’s drunk, trying so hard not to look like one, “You can tell her that I received her request.”

The intern shuffles, not meeting Clarke’s eyes. “And are you going to? See her, that is?”

Clarke cants her head. “I’m going.”

That’s all that gets out. It’s all she can get out. It’s technically true—she is going. She’s going to the pit, far, far away from her mother and her interns and the prying eyes of the chief, who’s likely still trolling around the hospital and staring at her with the sad eyes and the frowning and the pity that makes Clarke feel like cockroaches have crawled up her scrubs.

She’s going. Wells looks at her and nods, subtle, and Clarke would be grateful if she could. But she can’t, so she goes. There’s surgeries. There’s throwing yourself into work.

There’s coping, and then there’s this.

 

 

 

_“Hello, you’ve reached the Blakes!”_

_“No, no, we can’t say that—I’m not a Blake.”_

_“That’s not what the postage says.”_

_“The postage is technical.”_

_“Clarke, last week my sister came to visit and I never saw her for lunch because she was too busy snooping around the hospital and eating at that awful cafeteria with you. You’re a Blake.”_

_“Well—that’s because Lincoln works at the hospital, and Lincoln eats lunch with me.”_

_“Lincoln is the chief of general, and therefore much too old for my sister to be lurking around—”_

_“_ Lurking _, really._

 _“And anyway, I know it wasn’t about that—okay,_ just _about that, because O would just ask him out if she wanted to see him, and no one eats hospital food unless they have to.”_

_“But I’m Dr. Griffin at work.”_

_“…We can ditch the last names?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“It’s not like anyone phones the landline anymore_ anyway _.”_

_“Not that awful looking one at least.”_

_“We said no derogatory remarks about Lucille.”_

_“_ You _said. I laughed. And drank a lot of wine.”_

_There’s shuffling noise, and then a snicker. “Wait, has the—has the box been recording this whole time?”_

_“Is the light still on?”_

_“…Yeah.”_

_“Oh_ god _, quick, delete it before Raven calls and I have to hear about it for the next two—“_

_Beep._

 

 

 

There are words for situations like this—good words, words that mean things, words that don’t stick at the back of her throat all glued up and gummy. There are the words that she’s memorized, the ones that they give to strangers at the end of the day, when the bad thing has happened, or the ones that they use on the people they like when their loved ones have…they’re— _prepare yourself_ , they say, like there’s any preparation for this.

It’s harder now, to remember to the words. Maybe that’s how it works. Maybe when the words come easy, they aren’t the rights ones. Maybe it’s different when you have to say them for yourself. _Prepare yourself_. She’s always been prepared.

She stares at the phone. It’s one of the many old novelty items that they’d had an argument over getting. She’s firmly in the twenty-first century, with voicemail boxes that don’t need to be plugged in. They’d had a—a _spat_ over it, because a fight is about serious things, and the phone is about his vintage shopping addiction.

Was. It was about that.

She wants it to ring. She’s waiting for it to ring. She’s waiting and waiting and waiting and _waitingwaitingwaiting_ and it’s easy to be prepared until the bad things happen. She doesn’t remember the words.

 

 

 

 _“Clarke, Clarke. Oh my god, Clarke—you need to come to the hospital. Oh_ god _. It’s Bellamy. There’s been an accident.”_

 

 

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [after the beep (i'll tell you i love you)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5870638) by [emullz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emullz/pseuds/emullz)




End file.
